NW Victoria: Crops Failing, Stock Ponds Bone-Dry And Cracking

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There are 25 dams on Mr Burge's farm at Woosang, near Charlton in north-west Victoria.Though summer hasn't started, 24 are bone dry. The 25th, near the farmhouse, contains just half a metre or so of water.

The big dry means that Mr Burge is carting more than 50,000 litres of water around his farm each week to keep his flock of 1600 sheep alive. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday he climbs into the cab of his old Bedford and, with two large tanks on the tray behind, he rumbles slowly along the local dirt roads and farm tracks distributing water pumped from the Wimmera-Mallee Pipeline into strategically located tanks in the paddocks. The tanks then automatically re-fill large plastic troughs for the sheep to drink from. With eight mobs of sheep spread around his 1100-hectare farm there is a lot of driving and pumping - plus, of course, rising fuel and water bills.

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In parts of north-west Victoria some farmers will make a loss from their grain crops this season. Some crops were so poor farmers long ago gave up hopes of harvesting them, instead opening the gates to let livestock in to feed on them. Livestock producers have also been selling stock earlier than they otherwise would have. The Victorian Farmers Federation has brought the big dry into the election campaign, calling for drought assistance as farmers are confronted by a "1-in-20-year rainfall deficiency". Federation president Peter Tuohey wants the state and federal governments to sign off on a drought concessional loans package as soon as possible - and he wants the state to allocate funds to farmers to help offset the costs of carting water.

"After 10 or 15 years of extremely dry weather, with only a couple of good years among them, this drought period has added to their pain and the financial woes of quite a number of producers in that area. So they will need financial help to be able to plant next year's crop and to manage their businesses," he says.

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http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/under-the-radar-dams-bone-dry-and-crops-failing-in-northwest-victoria-20141115-11mt65.html